Background of the study

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents topics such as background of study, statements of problem, purpose of study, significance of study, scope and limitation, and definition of key terms. Each section is presented as follows.

1.1 Background of the study

Reading is one of language skills that focuses on how to read. Reading activity helped people to get information, knowledge, and new experience. So, if people aware of the importance of reading, they will improve their reading habit. According to Tarigan 1975 “Reading skill helps the students to acquire knowledge, sharpen evaluation, cover more material, get at heart of the matter, and develop taste and appreciation” There are two aspects in reading process; they are physical and mental aspects Soedarso, 2004. The first is physical aspect; it uses eyes to see the material, and uses hands to hold the book or newspaper that will be read. The next is mental aspect that involves people’s mind for example the readers have to concentrate and focus when they read. Those two aspects are very important in reading. According to Tarigan 1975, there are seven purposes of reading such as reading for detail or fact, reading for main ideas, reading for sequence or organization, reading for inference, reading to classify, reading to evaluate, and reading to compare or contrast. Reading for detail or fact is used to discover or find out what events are on the natural character and to find solutions for the problems experienced. Reading for main idea is used to determine why the topic was interesting, problems that occur in the story, and what are the events experienced by the characters. Reading for sequence or organization is used to determine the stage and completion stage in the story problem. Generally it is, to find out what happens to any part of the story. Reading for inference is used to find out why the figures tell the story to the reader, and tells the advantages and disadvantages that make the characters succeed or fail. Reading to classify is used to determine and classify events deemed reasonable or not reasonable and humor that happens to the character. Reading to evaluate is used to determine and measure the level of success experienced by the hero. Hope for the reader is able to imitate like that done by the hero. Reading to compare or contrast is used to determine how the character changed, and provide real-life story of the imaginary life. There are some benefits of reading; those are enhancing smarts, reducing stress, enhancing comfort, improving analytical thinking, increasing vocabulary, improving memory, improving writing skills. More reading habit makes people have wider knowledge. Those who like reading very much will be smarter than those who are not. Reading enhances people to get smart. It also reduces stress as books have kind of interesting content to comprehend especially fiction books. Sometimes, reading habit can give greater comfort also improving analytical thinking so that people could reach higher achievement. Vocabularies, memory, writing skills are also developed because of reading habit. Students who have good reading habit will be smart and have good mindset. The characteristics of the students who have reading habit always have wider knowledge and higher achievement. Students do it because they are aware on the importance of books in their daily lives. From reading habit students have much information that can be useful. For example, when they have assignment they will be able to solve the assignment in simple, because they have information to answer the question. On the other hand, when the student likes reading they, can finish their assignment well. By reading, students can have a lot of idea because they have a lot of experience from the book they read. When they read science book, they will have much idea of science that can be applied in the lesson and they will have the positive result for their education. Those are the benefits of reading habit to the students. Elementary school students commonly have difficulties in reading. The difficulties experienced by students come from both the students themself and the environment. The difficulty comes from the students themselves as learner. When reading texts the students have low curiosity so students do not have good reading habits. Another difficulty comes from the inappropriate teaching methods used by teacher, the less good quality books and the parents who do not give good example. The example of the difficulties experienced by the students is difficult to understand and interpret a word. The problems should be addressed as students must have high motivation to learn and realize how important the role of teachers and parents in improving student achievement. Reading can be difficult thing to do when students are passive in the class. Students tend to be quiet, not a lot of interaction between teachers and students. Passive class is caused by the readiness of teachers to manage the classroom, both in terms of the selection of the right material and the presentation of the material that is less attractive for students. In order to make class active, the teachers have to prepare the material and have a good technique to make students are interested to study. The teachers have to prepare interesting material like pictures that related to the topic therefore students will have imagination about the topic, and they will be easy to understand the material. Besides, the teacher have to use a good technique like mind mapping. Mind mapping is a simple technique for drawing information in diagrams, instead of writing it in sentences. This technique will help the students to find the alternative to comprehend the text. Besides, that technique will improve student’s vocabulary because they have to make a note and find the meaning about the difficult words or new vocabulary of the text. That is the benefits of mind mapping techniques that can increase student interest and achievement in the expected learning goals. Teacher, as a good teacher should have a high creativity to select and use appropriate techniques for their students. To know what the teaching techniques and what the appropriate teaching techniques used in SD 08 Muhammadiyah, Dau, Malang, the researcher study about technique used by the teacher in reading for the fifth grade students in SD 08 Muhammadiyah, Dau, Malang. The researcher choose the fifth grade because it impossible if he choose one until four grade student, as we know that one until four grade is still introducing English by using vocabulary and spelling words. Besides, if researcher chooses six grade, it will disturb them because they will prepare National examination, so they will focus on it.

1.2 Statements of Problem